


In Color

by JazzRaft



Series: In Weakness & In Strength [5]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 16:10:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14793693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: Astrals strike him down, if he had a gil for every flighty teenager’s poorly filtered sunrise shots posted to the internet, he’d be rich enough to buy out the Empire, set it all on fire, and not come out of it with a single loss suffered. What made Prompto's aspiring photography any different?





	In Color

Cor never would have considered Leide to be the most photogenic region that Lucis had to boast of.

Once upon a time, the brittle, baked earth used to be lush for farming. The plains used to burst with countless shades of green, full of fertile soil to nurse crops and livestock and livelihoods, from the mouth of Insomnia to the tree-line of Duscae.

The land had since been made barren by centuries of warfare. The time of its verdant prosperity had long since passed when Cor returned to it, with an accompaniment of royal charges to keep from tripping and falling into the dried up canyons.

If he’d thought Regis and his retinue had been harrowing company, then he’d clearly underestimated the power of genetic heritage. Noctis was twice the scrapper his father used to be, constantly being jerked back by the elbow for running into a fight before thinking it through. Gladiolus was less the picture of his father once he stepped from the frame of the Citadel, more of an enabler to the Prince’s wild ideas than a mentor. And Ignis, while the most mature of the four, could sometimes be caught abiding the same insanity – though he put on a good enough show of objections, playing the role of exasperated adult.

And then there was Prompto, prone to excitable jaunts into unknown territories, chasing the tail of an even less known beast that had captured the ravenous appetite of his curiosity. He was constantly aiming through the lens of his camera, mostly in places Cor would have rather hoped he’d aim through his gun. Even amidst the panic of battle, with the malevolent red eyes of the Imperial automatons surrounding them, Prompto never failed to astonish and abhor Cor with trick-shots designed for pistols being adapted to a LOKTON.

It was amazing any of them had survived for as long as they did outside of the safety drills enclosed by the King’s Wall. Cor was hesitant to abandon their party to resume the oversight of the myriad other duties that had passed to him in the wake of the King’s death. He brooded over the decision late into the night, the see-saw weights of pros and cons, sinking back and forth, making him seasick in the stationary fold-out chair.

He didn’t notice it was dawn until the tent flapped open beside him. Cor blinked the gray shades of staring through the night from his eyes, not all too surprised to find that it was Prompto awake first today.

The Prince’s companions seemed to take turns with that. There was some odd, unsaid system, vaguely resembling a pattern, which they cycled through per week. Most days, Ignis was the first to rise, relishing in the cool quiet of pre-dawn with a cup of coffee and his hair down. Gladiolus was a close second, sometimes first to take up whatever plateau they’d camped on to exercise stiff muscles or scope out the perimeter. When the early hours finally caught up to each of them, they traded that one extra hour in the tent with Prompto to instead take up the dawn wander for a day.

Prompto yawned and stretched with a _clack_ of sleepy joints. He blinked through a film of clouds at the state of the camp, turning his face towards Cor without really seeing him. Somehow, he mistook the Marshal’s narrowed stare for being closed to slumber, tiptoeing across the fading runes of the haven as if he were trying not to wake him. Cor might have considered the antics comical, if he wasn’t so curious about where he thought he was going, on his own, in unfamiliar territory, this early in the morning.

The see-saw rocked in the pit of Cor’s stomach again. He didn’t think splitting up for any reason was the wisest course of action. There were too many factors that risked Prompto’s safety if he was caught out in the open plateaus of Leide alone. But Cor couldn’t leave the Prince unprotected while his retainers were not yet awake to look out for him.

Fortunately, Cor’s stress over the matter was resolved for him when Ignis climbed from the tent a short time later.

“Morning, Marshal.”

“Ignis.”

Good, another set of eyes open for camp while he turned his towards Prompto. He made his excuses, quick commands covering the code of conduct should an emergency transpire – all of which Ignis was intimately familiar with already – then Cor followed Prompto’s tracks.

Cor convinced himself that it wasn’t so much that he was _worried_ about the kid. It was just the principle of the thing, secreting off at the break of dawn when there were dangers around every stone. He reminded himself that Prompto wasn’t helpless. He’d trained the boy himself. He knew that he was dangerous if he was backed into a corner. But he also knew that he had a habit of talking first and shooting later, if it meant he could avoid taking a life.

He followed Prompto up to a little crop of rocks overseeing the haven. Prompto saw him coming through his camera, waving down at him as he climbed the rocky terrain.

“Morning!” he chirped. “Hey, you’re just in time! Wanna be in the shot?”

Ah. So it was by pain of pictures that he had to blame for the breach in safety. Should have guessed.

Cor kept himself clear of the camera’s sights, cleaving a half circle around the trajectory of Prompto’s persistent captures. The boy made no comment, merely smiling beneath the bottom of the little machine as he fiddled with the miniscule knobs and dials.

Cor stationed himself at Prompto’s shoulder, arms crossed and eyes on the shrinking shadows burying themselves away from the sunlight. He squinted out to the horizon, trying to pick out whatever point of interest had earned the right to be immortalized in the archives of his camera. All he saw were rocks and scrub, dilapidated metal fixtures and rusty old fences standing guard over abandoned places. The road was clouded in waves of dust and swirls of heat, the occasional tree rising up from the clay earth.

Nothing of interest. Just brown and must. And rocks. So many rocks. Like warts bumping across the rigid skin of an old crone’s face.

“What are you looking for?” Cor sighed, loathe to admit his own curiosity.

“Juuuust wait another minute. Not quite sunrise yet.”

Cor rolled his eyes. Astrals strike him down, if he had a gil for every flighty teenager’s poorly filtered sunrise shots posted to the internet, he’d be rich enough to buy out the Empire, set it all on fire, and not come out of it with a single loss suffered.

“It’ll be worth it, trust me!” Prompto said, waving a hand in his direction while he focused on the framing. “Noct’s never up early enough. I don’t want him to miss out.”

Well, that was just impractical, Cor thought. Hardly worth the effort if Prompto got himself killed while he was distracted with getting the perfect shot. Sure, it was a kind enough sentiment. Sure, Cor knew well enough that it would make Noctis smile. Enough to mend his broken heart if the camera came back without a photographer to share it? Hardly.

Cor knew that he shouldn’t condone such frivolous behavior. Not given the seriousness of the Prince’s journey since Insomnia had fallen. If they thought they had time to stop for sunsets, these boys must not have grasped the severity of the situation. He knew that he should scold him, shame him if he had to, impress upon him, somehow, that now was not the time for childish sentimentality.

“Here we go!”

The lecture was fully prepared on the tip of Cor’s tongue when Prompto silenced him with the sunrise. Cor bit down his annoyance, and waited for him to take his stupid shot. While he waited, he watched in silence as Leide transformed underneath them.

The sun softened the old yellow dirt to gold, setting the pot-holed road afire with splashes of red. The scant tufts of grass slowly bled with a little more green with the right angle of light. The crumbling stones were struck through with veins of copper and silver trickles of dew. He could hear the waking calls of the creatures crawling from their homes, thanking the light for chasing away the daemons which scared them underground for the night.

It was like the ghost of old Leide was whispering across the war-torn fields with the slow ascent of the sun. Color seeped along the boundary of night and day, breathing life back into the dormant scrap of land.

It struck Cor then that he hadn’t seen a sunrise in… a very long time. He hadn’t taken the time to stop and stand and see. There were always orders to give, drills to run, enemy lines to infiltrate during the tiny windows of time where the night guards swapped with the ones for dawn. He always had reports to finish writing before the work routine started. He always had recruits to rouse, appearances to make, soldiers and convoys and security to oversee.

He didn’t have the time to appreciate the sunrise. And the nights were growing longer every day. He might miss these moments when they were gone for good.

“Got it!” Prompto cheered, softly, beaming at the digital image mimicking the world ahead of them. “But nothing beats the real thing, am I right?”

Cor said nothing, but that didn’t bother Prompto’s grin. He clipped his camera to his belt and folded his arms behind his head, looking out at the horizon to enjoy the rest of the sunrise with his own eyes. There was no better picture than a memory, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> filled for an anonymous request!


End file.
